HIS 200 Gateway Seminar: PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN Spring 2019 Prof. Michael Jarvis Tu Th 12:30-1:45 Office: Rush Rhees 455 Rush Rhees 456 Phone: 275-4558 Office Hours: Wed. 1 pm-3 pm or by appt. [email protected] Overview: This gateway research seminar introduces history majors to historical research, debate, and writing using piracy in the early modern Atlantic world as a common topic for inquiry. Over the semester, students will learn about history as an academic discipline and how to study history at a college level. You will master the skills of 1) defining and developing a research topic, 2) critically evaluating existing historical scholarship, 3) understanding different historians’ theoretical and methodological approaches, 4) identifying, evaluating and interpreting relevant primary and secondary sources (including non-documentary evidence), 5) considering perspective and bias present in historical evidence and scholarship, and 6) constructing historical arguments and explanations orally and in written work. By the end of the semester, each student will write a well-crafted 3,000-word (10- to 12-page) research paper that explores some aspect of early modern piracy, following standard conventions for historical writing. The skills you learn in this seminar will provide a firm foundation to build upon in the subsequent courses you take here at the University of Rochester and especially ready you to take HIS 200- and 300-level W seminars. Organization: This course initiates an open-ended conversation about history, what historians do, and how they do it. It introduces history as a continuing debate between scholarly interpreters, rather than as a set and stable script about what happened in the past. Studying piracy is merely a means to the end of understanding history as a process and a discipline. In most weeks, our discussions will focus on a series of questions for you to consider and debate, using either material from short assignments or assigned readings. While ostensibly focused on aspects of piracy, your written work will also develop and display skills critical to historical understanding and analysis. Our classroom is also your arena for raising questions generally about academia, liberal arts, and the purpose of history in modern society. At heart, this seminar is a collaborative venture in which we will all hopefully come to a better understanding of the past through teaching each other. Piracy – defined loosely as unsanctioned theft in a maritime context – is probably older than recorded history and occurred in most periods of the past, as well as in our present world. Because of my scholarly focus on maritime history in the early modern Atlantic world, we will mostly examine piracy in Caribbean and Atlantic waters, c. 1550-1750 – the era and area from which most popular images of piracy come. Although we will historicize piracy within this period, one can study piracy in other centuries and places: the Greek and Roman Mediterranean, Viking Europe, Medieval Ireland and Baltic, 1400- 1820 North Africa, 19th c. China and the Caribbean, 1830s Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, 1990s Adriatic and Indonesia, and 2005-present Somalia, to name a few examples. As a term, piracy has also been adopted to refer to violations of print copyright (19th c.) and illegal media distribution of music, films, and software. Historical pirates (generally sadistic thieves and thugs with boats) depart considerably from our popular modern image of pirates derived from literature, films, video games, and Halloween costumes. Tracing and explaining the cultural divergences of real and fictional pirates provides another useful way of understanding how successive generations have projected contemporary values and anxieties upon pirates. Pirates, therefore, offer an ideal subject for both studying history and considering how historical perspectives on a subject are constantly changing. Assessment: Your grade in this class is based on class participation (20 %), a book review (10 %), a pirate primary source analysis paper (10%), a substantive critique of a pirate videogame (10%), and written work associated with developing your research paper (50%). Your class participation grade includes various short exercises, small writing assignments, and in-class debates over the course of the semester. Class Participation: You are expected to attend every class, read the assigned material, and come prepared to answer the questions posited below and talk about what you have read. Seminars are by nature designed to be question-driven, so you will be expected to think on your feet. In contributing to discussion, quality is more appreciated than quantity. Be courteous and respectful to your peers. A history seminar is not a spectator sport: if you are silent, I will assume you are unprepared rather than brilliant but shy. Unexcused absences will also cause your class participation grade to suffer. Written Work: The rest of your grade is based on three short (5-page) papers: a critical review of Marcus Rediker’s Villains of All Nations (Feb. 28), a primary source analysis paper (March 12), and a critical appraisal of a pirate videogame or film from a selected list (April 4), and a 12-page (double spaced, exclusive of illustrations and bibliography) research paper addressing a topic that you will develop in consultation with me. In week XIV, you will give a 10-minute presentation on your research topic, which will be part of your class grade. We will develop your final research paper incrementally throughout the semester. Think about potential topics NOW and have one or two tentatively in mind from the start. You have until March 1 before you have to commit fully to any topic. By the end of Week 6 you will hand in a written prospectus, identifying your topic choice, a bibliography listing primary and secondary sources, and overview of your research progress thus far. This will be graded and is worth 5% of your research paper grade. During Week X, you will turn in an outline of your developing paper when we meet to discuss progress, which is also worth 5% of your research paper grade. A full-text, properly referenced draft of your research paper is due on April 18 and is worth 10% of your grade. This should NOT be a “rough draft” and will be graded as if it is your final submission. You will get back two sets of comments and suggestions (one from me, one from a student peer) that should guide you to make further refinements and improvements before submitting the revised, final version of your research paper on Wednesday, May 8, by noon. This will be worth 30% of your grade. Late submissions will not be accepted. Required Texts: John Arnold, History: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2000) Alexander Exquemelin, Buccaneers of the Americas (1678) Capt. Johnson [Daniel Defoe?], A General History of the Pyrates (2004) Kris Lane, Pillaging the Empire: Piracy in the Americas, 1500-1750 (New York, 1998) Marcus Rediker, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (Cambridge, 1986) Marcus Rediker, Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age (Boston, 2004) Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island (any edition will do…) William Storey, Writing History: A Guide for Students (5th ed., Oxford, 2015) Required Viewing: Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) Captain Phillips (2013) Required Playing (sign up to select one): 1701 A.D. Gold Age of Pirates: Caribbean Tales Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag Buccaneer Commander: Conquest of America East India Company Collection Ocean Trader Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End Port Royale 3 Sid Meier’s Pirates! Live the Life The Settlers Tortuga: Two Treasures Uncharted Waters …OR other pirate- or oceanic trade-related games, with instructor permission NOTE that there are also many articles and chapters from books for which you are also responsible. You will find most of them on the course Blackboard webpage or can get them via JSTOR (see the Rush Rhees Databases), Google Books, or the old fashioned way: paper copies in the library stacks. The College’s credit hour policy for undergraduate courses is to award 4 credit hours for courses that meet for the equivalent of 3 periods of 50 minutes each week. Students enrolled in HIS 200 are expected to devote at least one hour each week to identifying the main lines of argument in course readings to prepare for discussions and researching in depth their topics for the final seminar paper. U. of R. Writing, Speaking, and Argument Program: Over the course of the semester while developing your reaction and research papers, you are allowed -- and very much encouraged -- to work with writing tutors and specialists in the College WSAP Center (http://writing.rochester.edu/center.html, Rush Rhees Ground floor). They will help you to improve your prose and organization and can serve as ideal readers/sounding boards as you develop your research projects. As a fortune cookie I once opened stated, “Good writing is clear thinking made visible.” The writing center staff can help you to achieve this ideal - if you work with them. Rush Rhees Research Librarians: You are also encouraged to consult Alan Unsworth early and often while developing your research paper. Alan is a specialist in U.S., British, and European sources and can help you at all stages of the research project, especially in finding relevant source materials. You can contact him at the Reference Desk or by email/phone: [email protected]/ x59298. Intellectual Honesty Students and faculty at the University must adhere to high standards of academic honesty in all of the work that we do. You have already read and signed an academic honesty policy statement indicating that you understand the general principles upon which our work is based.